Motivated by the current (2011) political climate in Wisconsin it seems reasonable to devote some time and effort to comment on issues and some of the hyperbole. So we in the public should do what we can to help focus "journalists" on delineating real facts versus spin. If you accept the spin you do not understand the policy implications.

Saturday, July 30, 2016

Psychology has a golden rule: If I am warm, you are usually warm. If I am hostile, you are too. But what happens if you flip the script and meet hostility with warmth? It's called "non-complementary behavior" — a mouthful, but a powerful concept, and very hard to execute. Alix and Hanna examine three attempts to pull it off: during a robbery, a terrorism crisis and a dating dry spell.

The story is multi-part ... robber, radicalization, dating and finally the science. It reminded me very much of my work in software consulting where I was always going into a "hostile" environment where it was perceived that the company I worked for was responsible for "the problem".

In our political environment today it has become standard behavior to be "hostile" no matter what. This presents a very problematic situation. I always viewed my task as trying to find ways for the groups involved to "save face". It usually worked. The failures usually resulted from "major coverups" where one group really knew they had botched it. Even then "saving face" for them was sometimes possible ... blame it on other related external factors.

Sunday, July 24, 2016

For two straight days, they asked Trump question after question that touched on the same theme: Trump’s honesty.

The lawyers confronted the mogul with his past statements — and with his company’s internal documents, which often showed those statements had been incorrect or invented. The lawyers were relentless. Trump, the bigger-than-life mogul, was vulnerable — cornered, out-prepared and under oath.

My opponent asks her supporters to recite a three-word loyalty pledge. It reads: "I'm With Her". I choose to recite a different pledge.

["I'm With Her" started out as a hashtag and sometimes supporters do chant it at events, but the Clinton campaign doesn't ask supporters to pledge loyalty by reciting it. The campaign's current slogan is "Stronger Together." — Tamara Keith]

Saturday, July 23, 2016

In general "boards" are probably a good way to stop swerving all over the highway. When a policy making politician (Walker) serves a longtime they end up appointing all the members. This is all well and good so long as the public really is involved in electing that politician. If you bias the process by voter suppression (intimidation, id requirements, moving polling places, changing registration requirements, making registration expensive) or vote gerrymandering it is an insidious corruption ... pure and simple.

SCOTUS is like a board and it's current makeup a little bit questionable. Let's hope they can change the vote manipulation process and determine a way to prevent all these forms of corruption. Validating "efficiency gap" would at least be a start.

To illustrate, take a state with five districts: two won easily by Democrats, 76 percent to 24 percent, and three won more narrowly by Republicans, 59 percent to 41 percent. Democrats waste 26 percent of the vote in the two districts they win and 41 percent in the three districts they lose. Republicans waste 24 percent of the vote in the two districts they lose and 9 percent in the three districts they win. Over all, Democrats get 55 percent of the statewide vote but just 40 percent of the seats, yielding a pro-Republican efficiency gap of 20 percent.

The Wisconsin map at issue in Whitford is like this example — only with 99 districts instead of five. According to one of the plaintiffs’ experts, University of Wisconsin professor Kenneth Mayer, there are 42 districts in which the Republican candidate typically wins between 50 percent and 60 percent of the vote. In contrast, there are just 17 where the Democrat prevails this narrowly.

Update 12/13 : They punted for a month ... keep the pressure onSelf-Insurance will hurt all Wisconsinites!12/13/2016 Group Insurance Board goes on record -- will they be telling us "drop dead?"

The new report, by staff at the state Department of Employee Trust Funds, will be presented Wednesday to the Group Insurance Board, which oversees the $1.4 billion health benefits program for 250,000 state and local government workers and their family members.

The board is expected to discuss bids from companies seeking to participate in a self-insurance program in closed session Wednesday and act on the matter publicly Dec. 13. A move to self-insurance would then go before the state Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee.

... But Phil Dougherty, senior executive officer of the Wisconsin Association of Health Plans, which represents 12 of the 17 HMOs involved in the current program, said the bid process won’t evaluate other important factors.

... “There are serious considerations outside the scope of the (request for proposal) process that must be explored — real consequences, ranging from elimination of choice for consumers and greater financial risk for taxpayers to market instability and higher costs for other health care purchasers and local communities,” Dougherty said in a statement.

If the Group Insurance Board adopts self-insurance, the state legislature’s Joint Finance Committee would have oversight of any contract.

Sort of concludes we are between a rock and a hard place ... think Walker/GOP will act with correct policies ?Added 2016.08.08I can't prove it but I can suspect it (with enough time and effort I think I could prove it) ... rural communities vote for politicians, such as Walker, who promise tax cuts and in truth they probably deliver. However, the tax cuts do not even fall proportionately on the population but instead go to "wealthy" via property tax reductions and the "high income" since the "rural" or "low income" are seldom targeted to benefit.

The politicians count on most voting citizens to know nothing about the benefit or the cost distribution or the local government (schools, etc.) or personal or corporate incidence of tax policy.

This is the real shell game ... supposedly giving you what you want but putting the prize under the cup that only the wealthy have asked for or know about.
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Out-Migration ...

the "real" reason for rural perception of "Politics of Resentment" and why won't the kid come back?

Since the Great Recession, more people have been migrating out of Wisconsin than moving into the state — a pattern contrary to Minnesota and Iowa.

All three states had a net gain of people moving into them through 2009, the last official year of the recession, but since 2010 Wisconsin has had more people move out than in since 2010, said David Egan-Robertson, a demographer with the University of Wisconsin Applied Population Laboratory. Iowa has had positive annual net migration in all years, while Minnesota's pattern was negative only in 2010. In 2011, Minnesota started posting the largest gains of all three states.

Egan-Robertson discussed Wisconsin migration patterns in a November 12, 2015, talk given at the Cooperative Extension State Conference. His presentation, "Population Changes in Wisconsin since the Recession," was recorded for Wisconsin Public Television's University Place.

Among Wisconsin's counties, the number losing population has increased since 2004, with 42 of the 72 dropping in 2012, compared to 13 in 2002. "[W]e've been hovering sort of in the more or less half gain, half loss situation since the Great Recession," Egan-Robertson said.

__________________________________11/11/2016I don't doubt plenty of people have trouble, especially in rural areas, paying their property tax bill. That is a problem the "Homestead Tax Credit" was designed to alleviate in Wisconsin - does it need expansion? Many rural areas also lack social infrastructure as well as physical infrastructure.Why would a family with children want to move to or live in a place with no schools and little immediate access to health care. Why would a retired person want to live there either - they may be stuck and getting to a doctor is really a major problem? Why would someone growing up there, spending most of their time being bused to school, want to stay there when they can't get a job later; when they can go to a larger community get a job, meet other people their age, and have more of a social life?Wisconsin Self-Insurance is likely to decimate healthcare alternatives for all citizens in rural areas.Why?__________________________________The Atlantic (3/17): Red State, Blue City The United States is coming to resemble two countries, one rural and one urban. What happens when they go to war?

But if liberal advocates are clinging to the hope that federalism will allow them to create progressive havens, they’re overlooking a big problem: Power may be decentralized in the American system, but it devolves to the state, not the city. Recent events in red states where cities are pockets of liberalism are instructive, and cautionary. Over the past few years, city governments and state legislatures have fought each other in a series of battles involving preemption, the principle that state law trumps local regulation, just as federal law supersedes state law. It hasn’t gone well for the city dwellers.